Walking The Fine Line
by MostBeautifulDeception
Summary: or: Six Times Genesis Rhapsodos Was Asked If He Was Happy and One Time He Wasn't. SxG, Genesis-centric, slightly AU
1. Prologue

**This is a semi-autobiographic fic. I shamelessly used Genesis as a convoy for my thoughts, and adapted his story to bring them out in his voice.**

**This is AU, for it imagines that things evolved a bit differently than canon, but it tries not to outright contradict it. It also goes further: the story goes on far beyond the events in Dirge of Cerberus, as you'll see in later chapters. Hope that chapters 6 and 7 are clear enough for the readers to understand how I imagined the story going on. However, the focus is little on the plot and more about the characters and their growth.**

**Also, this is pure and simple SephirothxGenesis. Hopefully, it doesn't become too cheesy and I managed to keep them a bit IC. Don't like, don't read.**

**Disclaimer: as if you needed to know I do not own this masterpiece that is FFVII...**

**PROLOGUE – On Happiness**

Vincent Valentine enters the silent, empty room, and his keen eyes travel past the double bed occupying its center, to settle on the desk that sits near the large window. The desk is surprisingly clear, apart from a blue ink pen and a little leather-bound book.

The scent of the late occupants of the room is still strong, and Vincent's enhanced nostrils cannot help but drink it in, causing him to stagger for a moment under the wave of memories that threatens to wash over him.

The ex-Turk circles the wide bed to stand in front of the desk, and reaches for the book. The cover is just a simple piece of worn out red leather, that constant use had caused to fade to a more brownish tint. There is nothing written upon it, and it takes Vincent quite some time to finally win his reticence and open it at the page that its late owner has left marked.

As Vincent already suspected, this is not yet another copy of Loveless, but Genesis Rhapsodos's personal notebook. The last entry, written in a neat and yet elegant handwriting, is dated March 14, no more than a week prior, and Vincent, pulled by an irresistible curiosity and the need to fill in the void that once again has taken over his heart, sits at the desk and begins reading.

_Happiness. Happiness is a fleeting notion, although for a simple mind it may appear clear enough. My mind, though, is far from simple, and it took me quite some time to figure out something about happiness._

_Happiness is a matter of middle ground, a fleeting balance between two excesses. _In medio stat virtus_, some philosopher whose name I had long since forgotten stated once. _In medio stat felicitas_, I'd say myself._

_It's kinda like what happens with drinking. And I can positively say, without fear of contradiction, that I know something about drinking. Drinking to really enjoy your drink and your evening is a rare art of walking the incredibly fine line between one glass too little and one sip too much. Forego that one last glass, and it's like you drank nothing, except for the fact that your liver still has to process all the alcohol you _did_ ingest. But swallow that one sip that exceeds your capacity to resist alcohol, and your night is going to be dedicated to praying to the porcelain God, as Angeal put it once (in more mundane terms, you're going to puke your insides out while holding on to the toilet for dear life). But if you manage to stay in the middle (and the success of this undertaking often eludes even the greatest masters of the art of drinking), well, if you succeed, you start to feel lightheaded, the world shines brighter around you, and your worries melt down like snow under the spring sun._

_But back to the point. Happiness. Happiness is like drinking. Happiness is finding a delicate balance between your dreams and what life has gifted upon you, it's walking the fine line between your aspirations and the constraints and hardships that sooner or later will be placed upon your shoulders, the weight of your everyday worries, of your insecurities, of your mistakes._

_Happiness is not the excess of drinking away your nights in a self-induced frenzy to forget everything and convince yourself you are worth something. Neither happiness is the opposite excess of letting Fate spit to your face without putting up some fight._

_Happiness is a notion of peace. A peace that follows a hard battle against life, but even more so against yourself._

_Happiness is knowing that even after all the trials you faced and are yet going to face, there is still something worth living for, something worth fighting for._

_Happiness is knowing you're not perfect and still you are good enough for someone to love you as you are. Happiness is knowing that you love this someone as much as this someone loves you._

_It took me quite some time to figure out something about happiness. It took me Sephiroth._


	2. Act One

**ACT I - The Golden Age**

_There is no hate, only joy_

_For you are beloved by the Goddess._

"Are you happy, Genesis, dear?"

The first time Genesis Rhapsdos is asked this question he's only five years old, and it's his father who asks him.

It's New Year's Eve, and, as tradition dictates, families in Banora gather together around a table laid with every kind of delicacy they could put together and exchange presents and hugs and occasional stories, enjoying the vacation in the company of their loved ones.

This year a large box wrapped in green and red paper with a label that reads 'GENESIS' in capital letters, so that the young child can recognize his name, has made its appearance on the large wooden table in the Rhapsdos mansion, and when the overexcited boy eagerly unwraps it the box reveals the shiny pair of toy swords that little Genesis had been eyeing for months through the window of his favorite toy shop in Mideel.

An excited squeal passes the boy's lips at the sight of the long dreamt of present. He can't wait to meet Angeal. Although it's the middle of winter, the weather is good and they have received permission to go play outside in the orchards in the afternoon.

Genesis is already planning what they can do with their shiny new swords (he hasn't for a moment thought of the toys as _his_: there are two of them, and so one is for him and one's for Angeal: it's as simple as that). They will play the Soldiers together, as they often do: they will start with a little training, challenging each other like good comrades in arms; then, once their training is completed, and they have become Soldier 1st Class, they will go off on the most difficult mission of all, to rid the orchards of the big bad monsters that want to eat the precious dumbapples. And then they will come back to the village, where the people will thank them and say that they are heroes, and then...

At the very young age of five, living in a village that offers one of the best playground a child can dream of, and with a best friend that is more like a twin brother than just a friend, happiness for Genesis Rhapsodos is a mouthful of dumbapple, his naked feet caressed by grass, his hair ruffled by the constant breeze of banoran orchards. A new pair of toy swords for him and Angeal to play with is the icing on the cake, yes, but, to tell the truth, the cake was already good enough without it.

"I will never be more happiest in my life!"

Apart from the excusable faltering grammar of his young age, Genesis enthusiastically answers his father's question by unknowingly stating one of the greatest truths of his life, even though he cannot realize it yet.

_Imagine there's no heaven: it's easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us, only sky._

John Lennon - Imagine


	3. Act Two

**ACT II - Eagerness**

_Infinite in mystery is the Gift of the Goddess._

_We seek it thus, and take to the sky._

"Oh, Genesis, dear, are you happy?"

The second time he is asked this question, Genesis is seventeen and about to leave his childhood home behind to go chase after his dreams in Midgar, while his mother, on her part, is trying hard to bite back the impulse to tell him all the truth and keep him close, never letting him go.

This night Marytha Rhapsodos has waited some good five minutes before disturbing her son with her question, preferring to silently enjoy the sight of her little Genesis one last time before bidding him goodnight, and goodbye.

Genesis hadn't even noticed her standing on his bedroom door; his stare had been wandering out the open window of his room, beyond the yard of the Rhapsodos mansion with its large dumbapple tree, beyond the small village of Banora with its orchards, beyond the Mideelan Region, over, over to Midgar with its great Plate and its massive ShinRa Building. Beside him, a large suitcase is already closed and ready for tomorrow's early leaving, his training sword packed together with his favorite copy of Loveless and his most important belongings.

He and Angeal had been training hard those last months.

Their days had been spent in the orchards, as always, but their playful games with toy swords had now been replaced by more serious exercises meant to prepare their bodies and minds for the very tests each young man around their age has been dreaming to pass since the news of the first wutain successes of Captain Sephiroth Crescent, the Soldier prodigy, had reached every corner of the vast territories under ShinRa's influence.

Their nights had been spent on their beds, both too tired to do anything else than staring at the ceiling of their rooms, with their overexerted muscles aching so much that it took a considerable effort to even lift their phones to send each other messages that grew in excitement with the nearing of their scheduled test for entering the Soldier program.

Genesis has always been the most eager of the two, the most inclined to feel constrained under the pressure of the small community of their little backwater village. He has never fit in well here, his sexuality, his tastes, his very way of thinking and being marking him as somewhat different from the other villagers (with the noticeable exception of Angeal, Aunt Gillian and perhaps his parents and Arius, the old librarian from Mideel who introduced him to Loveless seven years ago). Genesis wants more, he wants the life of the infamous capital of the ShinRa empire, the shining streets and alleys, the shops and inns and clubs and theatres, the Loveless plays, the life of Soldier and the fame that comes with it. Banora has long since become too uncomfortably small for those grandiose dreams.

"I'm sure I will be happy once I become a Soldier, Mom."

Too eager for what awaits him in Midgar to realize the worth of what he's leaving behind, Genesis is blind to the silent worry that is written all over his mother's face at the thought of her beloved son, her only son, unknowingly putting himself again in the hands of the men that thought of him only as a failed experiment.

_When you're born without wings all you want is that feeling of flying, of rising and climbing._

Jon Bon Jovi – Learn To Love


	4. Act Three

**ACT III - The Missing Piece**

_Ripples form on the water's surface._

_The wandering soul knows no rest._

"So tell me, are you happy now, Gen?"

Genesis is twenty-five, a Soldier 1st Class and the Crimson Commander of the ShinRa forces, when the question is posed to him for the third time, Angeal's gleeful tone and the low lights of the Wandering Chocobo Inn masking his best friend's concern for his wellbeing.

It hasn't been much since the last time the two of them had come here, to their favorite hangover tavern, as Genesis often puts it, not without a hint of spite in his tone for his newfound habit of drinking away those nights when sleep eludes him, his brain seemingly unable to shake off the creeping sensation of uneasiness that slowly but steadily eats away at his insides.

Last time they came here was less than a month ago, and by that time Genesis had only started to acknowledge that the feelings he harbored for Sephiroth went far beyond a teenage crush, admiration, desire to emulate, or even close friendship. Now, three weeks and a little vacation in Banora later, Genesis and Sephiroth have finally taken their relationship a step further, but it's all too clear to Angeal that they still have issues to solve.

Issues that begin with Genesis's need to constantly live over the top, his only way to shake off the feeling of unworthiness that poisons him (not that Genesis does this intentionally, Genesis doesn't know what the problem is, but Angeal, yeah, Angeal _knows_, has known for ages). Issues that continue with Sephiroth's little-to-no capacity to understand his friend's inner weakness (not that Sephiroth doesn't _want_ to, but handling Genesis is a task that demands a conspicuous amount of sensitivity, and growing up in a lab doesn't exactly _help_ in developing good social skills, Angeal guesses). Issues that thus end with the inevitable competition that is always lurking between the Silver General and his second in command, transforming their every interaction, and most likely now those in the bed too, in a never-ending pissing contest.

The worried Soldier 1st Class wonders if his two friends are ever going to acknowledge that there are issues between them _at all_, let alone thinking of solving them.

"I am a Commander of Soldier, I have fame, a fan club, Loveless plays, a hangover tavern... I even have sex with Sephiroth now. I have everything I wanted."

Genesis's too quick blabbering followed by a even quicker gulp of beer is the proof that "_almost_ everything" would be a more correct answer; but Genesis doesn't say that, because he knows all too well that, no matter how hard he tries, he still can't quite point what that "_almost_" stands for.

_There's nothing worse than living less, when you yearn for something more._

Jon Bon Jovi – The Last Night


	5. Act Four

**ACT IV – Knowledge**

_My friend, the Fates are cruel:_

_there are no dreams, no honor remains._

"You've had your revenge, it seems. So tell me, are you happy now, Genesis?"

The fourth time he hears this question, it comes from Hollander's lips, and sounds like too cruel a joke, here, on his thirty-fourth birthday, among the still smoking ruins of Nibelheim and his shattered dreams.

A man his age should still be able to consider himself young, but Genesis Rhapsodos is already dying, and has learned too much. He knows too much about ShinRa, about Jenova, about a group of mad scientists who dabble in playing God, in creating and shaping life at their cruel will.

Ignorance is bliss, they say, and now Genesis has seen too much, knows too much.

He had seen his best friend sprouting two white wings on his right shoulder, and he knew that Angeal would fight till the end against his worst instincts, in his desperate quest to save them all from the spiraling of hatred that Genesis had set into motion.

He had seen Sephiroth frowning when they met in Reactor 5, had heard him saying "It's all yours", and he knew that his once teenage idol, his friend, his _lover_, was asking him, in his special, very Sephiroth-like way, to come back.

For a moment, Genesis had even considered answering that plea.

But Genesis had also seen a single black wing cutting open its way through the battered skin of his left shoulder, and he knew he was a monster. He had seen streaks of grey hair marring his once fiery red mane, and he knew that he had always been nothing but a failed experiment, a miscalculation, a dead branch in the tree of evolution.

And so Genesis had reminded himself that he was out for revenge.

And now that he has obtained it somehow, now that he has walked through the flames burning Nibelheim to the ground in a cruel, smelling metaphor of the hatred that consumes him, now that he has felt some sort of sick, twisted pleasure in seeing Sephiroth finally falling down, down into madness and into a mako reactor... now he feels hollow.

He knows too much, and at the same time too little.

He still doesn't know what he lacked in the years of his youth, but now he finally knows, with an awareness that hurts in its clarity, what he _had_, what he has now lost forever.

Dear old Angeal, who for all his strength and courage had still failed in the face of Genesis's headstrong refusal to let go of his desire for revenge.

Poor little Sephiroth, whose friendship Genesis himself poisoned with envy, and whose wrath Genesis himself nurtured with his betrayal.

Ignorance is bliss, they say, and Genesis cannot agree more. He would gladly forget certain things about Jenova Project G.

Because now Hollander's question, to his knowing ear, sounds just too much like another voice, a much friendlier and playful one, who had once asked him the same thing.

Dear, dear Angeal. Dear old honorable Angeal. Dear old strong, steadfast, stubborn, _dead_ Angeal.

"Go blow yourself, Hollander."

There is really nothing else to say, and it still is a lie, because Genesis _needs_ Hollander, if he wants to find a cure.

_You can flee, you can be your own enemy: in the end you will see no daylight._

Edenbridge - Higher


	6. Act Five

**ACT V – Katharsis**

_My soul, corrupted by vengeance, hath endured the torment_

_To find the end of the journey in my own salvation, and your eternal slumber._

"Are you happy now, Gen?"

It's the fifth time someone asks him this question, and Angeal's voice echoes in his head, but it's all wrong, because Angeal is dead, and Genesis should be dead too, not asleep, cured, thirty-eight.

It's Angeal's ghost that speaks to him through his deep slumber in the flooded cave below Midgar, the self-made prison he confined himself into now a year ago. That man, Weiss, had asked for his help, but Genesis is in no condition to help anyone, let alone himself. No, Genesis needs time.

Now he sees it somehow, the missing piece he couldn't find back then. He hasn't really grasped it yet, but he can see it in the distance, behind his eyelids closed over his long slumber. One day, maybe, if the Goddess is merciful, he will reach it, wrap his fingers around it.

For now he awaits, in the cocoon he has built himself, and sleeps. And dreams.

He dreams of Sephiroth, of Banora, of Angeal, of Nibelheim. Sometimes he dreams of Zack the Puppy, of a dumbapple in his palm while treading between life and death, of a dream come true in a destroyed orchard.

He dreams of that time twenty years ago when he almost jumped out of his boots when he and Angeal, still teenage 3rds, crossed Commander Sephiroth's path in the corridors of ShinRa Building. Then, in his dream, the corridor stays the same, but now it's past curfew and he, Geal and Seph are twenty-three and silently slipping in the Training Room for an hour of good fun. The Training Room generates the hologram of Sector 5 Station, and then it's only Sephiroth and him, sweating after a fight, their flushed faces merely inches apart. But they are no more in the Training Room, now, they are in Banora, under a dumbapple tree in the night of New Year's Eve, and Sephiroth's lips finally, _finally_ crash down upon his, and it all feels so good, too good to be real. It's just a blur after that, a mounting feeling of sheer pleasure, and Genesis for a moment thinks he's found his Gift. But Angeal's question brings him stumbling back to the Wandering Chocobo Inn, and that fleeting feeling of utter joy melts like snow under the sun. He's confused now, thorn, he doesn't understand where that Gift has gone, why everything between him and Sephiroth always has to end in a fight, like that time, yes, that time in the Training Room, when he had shouted "The world needs a new hero!" and then a dark wing had torn his left shoulder apart, and white feathers were stained with blood, and there was pain, burning pain, a burning village, and Sephiroth laughing, laughing, laughing like a madman...

Genesis cries, in his cocoon in the underwater cave.

Cries over what he has lost, and what he hadn't been able to see.

His parents' constant affection and support. The little paradise of his childhood home. His successes, both in Banora and in Midgar. Angeal's steadfast friendship. Sephiroth's silent admiration and love. It was all there, had always been there, and Genesis now knows that he, blinded by his own fears, in his desperate search of assurances, had been unable to recognize the signs of Sephiroth's affection for what they were, and, with it, all the things he should have treasured. Fallen prey to the worst part of him, he had poisoned his and Sephiroth's very chance at happiness, and destroyed everything.

That was his sin, Genesis knew, and now he was facing his punishment.

"One day... one day I'll come back and set things right, Geal. I promise."

And so Genesis Rhapsodos sleeps, and dreams, and cries, and waits for when the time comes to repay his debts, silently fearing he won't be able to find a way to make amend for his crimes.

_We're all looking for answers, we're all down there on our knees. All anybody really wants is something to believe._

Jon Bon Jovi – The Last Night


	7. Act Six

**ACT VI – Tentatively**

_My friend, your desire is the bringer of life,_

_the Gift of the Goddess._

"Genesis? Can I ask you something? Are you... happy?"

Here's that question again, for the sixth time in the forty-one years of his life, and Sephiroth's voice is sounding so deep and quiet over the chirping of birds outside the open window, wrapped in the calm embrace of the sunset rays.

It's in times like this that Genesis wonders if he's still dreaming.

He must be, because, honestly, this last year spent together with Sephiroth in the home they built themselves in a reborn Banora surely feels like a daydream.

But Genesis has been dreaming for a considerable amount of years by now, and he knows that the wonderful sensation of Seph's muscular torso against his back is simply too real to be a dream, even though it seems too good to be real. No, as incredible as it may sound, this is not one of his dreams.

His dreams stopped two years ago, some months after the son of the Calamity had been reborn for the third time. But this time Genesis Rhapsodos, Minerva's Crimson Weapon, was bent to set things right. And set things right he did, somehow, stopping Sephiroth from almost destroying Avalanche, and finally ridding the Planet of its Nightmare. Only, he didn't get rid of it in the way Cloud Strife had thought of at first.

To be fair, it hadn't been his merit only. Hadn't it been for Vincent Valentine, who finally told Sephiroth the truth about Lucrecia Crescent, long before Genesis came back, probably Sephiroth's mind would still have been too entangled in Jenova's lies for him to shake off the alien bitch's clutch over him.

True, all the progress Sephiroth's natural father had made in six months was abruptly cancelled when he was deemed dead after the Omega Incident, his newfound son having been kept away from the battlefield because of Strife's messed up ideas of "precaution". And then, with Vincent seemingly gone and an already tired Avalanche on the verge of falling under Sephiroth's angry strikes, Genesis appeared, like a mirage from a long forgotten era.

And he had somehow managed to make Sephiroth come to his senses once more, and never fall pray to the alien bitch again. A miracle, surely, a merciful blessing of his Goddess. Or maybe, simply the fact that this time Genesis had truly opened his heart to him.

Be it a miracle or not, their newfound intimacy has blossomed and brought them here, on the evening of New Year's Eve once again, basking in the twilight sun on the sofa of their living room in Banora. Their bodies haven't aged a bit in the past years, but, honestly, that didn't really come out as a surprise, after all.

Shifting to get more comfortable in their embrace, Genesis ponders Sephiroth's question. He remembers his parents, Angeal, Gillian, the Puppy. Dares he really say he's happy, after all the suffering, after all the losses he has caused and went through?

"...Why do you ask?"

The doorbell's ringing announcing Vincent's arrival interrupts them, taking away Genesis's chance to finally try and say "yes".

_You learn to love to live. You fight, and you forgive. You face the darkest nights. Just live before you die._

Jon Bon Jovi – Live Before You Die


	8. Act Seven

**ACT VII – When All Is Said And Done**

_Legend shall speak of sacrifice at the world's end._

_The wind sails over the water's surface, quietly but surely._

Genesis fixes his gaze into Sephiroth's steady one, and for a moment thinks that it would be fit if someone asked him if he was happy, this time.

It would be the seventh time, his seventh try at the question that somehow accompanied all his life, and for the first time, with the blade of Masamune tearing at his insides, and the screaming and squirming form of Jenova impaled against him, Genesis Rhapsodos, at the venerable age of more than a hundred years, feels ready to answer.

Genesis wraps his hands around Masamune, and all of his life flashes in front of his eyes as he prepares to cast Apocalypse.

He was born and he grew up in a little backwater town, a small corner of earthly paradise, surrounded by a family that loved and supported him, and with a best friend that knew him like no one else, and would follow him to the end of the world.

He felt that what he had wasn't enough, and he left for a distant metropolis, hoping the lights of Midgar would fill in his need to be recognized.

He became a hero of the Wutai War, a star with a fanclub of his own, and still felt that something was missing.

He met his teenage idol, confronted him, almost came at a par with him. He fell in love with Sephiroth and won his heart over without truly realizing what happened between them.

And he still felt it wasn't enough, and ended up destroying everything.

He knew failure, pain, betrayal, fatal illness, knew things about himself that made him feel worse than a monster.

He thirsted for revenge, and savored its bitter taste.

He saw Angeal and his Puppy fall, collateral victims of his hatred.

He caused the destruction of two villages, one of which was his childhood heaven, and stained his hands with the death of hundreds of people, even if Nibelheim burned at Sephiroth's command.

He knew desperation and the feeling of godly hands gifting a miracle upon him.

He knew punishment for his sins, and he knew repentance as he set himself in a seemingly hopeless quest to right his wrongdoings.

He reached to Sephiroth once again and little by little they made their way back through the ruins they had left behind themselves, slowly, faltering, staggering like drunks who tried to steady one another, tripping, falling, rising up together again.

He came back to Banora, where he knew years of peace with Sephiroth, in their home built over what remained of the old Rhapsodos mansion, at least until Jenova's screams came to break the tranquil joy of the banoran orchards once more.

And now that it's the end, they're going to go out together and bring that fucking alien bitch down with them once and for all.

As their personal Apocalypse comes, Genesis Rhapsodos sees Sephiroth smile, and finally feels ready to knowingly answer _The_ question with the honest truth.

"Yes, I have been happy."

_It's the Circle of Life, and it moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love, till we find our place on the path unwinding, in the Circle, the Circle of Life._

The Lion King – Circle of Life


End file.
